So a few months ago I had a drive failure. I removed the drive from the pool and got the standard "you have permanently lost some files, blah blah, we won't tell you what these files are because this dialog box is dumb" etc. Now when this has happened before it generally means all the backups are lost, which while annoying isn't a HUGE deal. I reset the backup database, rebacked up my machine and everything is well. However I was going through some of the shares today and I noticed some folders in a couple of the replicated shares aren't there anymore. I did have one unreplicated share and I lost data from that share which I was expecting, but I thought the replicated ones would be safe.
The drive that failed was a 500gb drive and I had over 1tb free when I removed it. Suggestions for anything I can do different for next time or should I just consider getting a non-WHS NAS?
I am largely clueless as to figuring out WHS issues and do not yet have experience with losing a drive.
That said, I have two points in response:
1. I been using the jungle disk add-in to make offsite backups of my WHS folders that I want to back up (but not of the PC backups... that is not an option and anyway would be too much of a burden on my bandwidth). Use of this add-in would come with various caveats:
Jungle disk is not free. It is an offsite backup software that seems to be a front end for the Amazon.com S3 cloud (or some such terminology). I use it for backing up all my computers, after having tried a couple of other offsite services. It is comparatively affordable (I am billed each month.... I'll estimate less than $10 per month). The add-in specifically for WHS is one that Jungle disk seems to have done a good job with at first, but it does not seem to be as ardently pursued in terms of updating as with the other softwares they put out. In
this recent statement I think they gave a decent idea of their sort-of ambivalence. They are somewhat on top of continuing with the project, but are finding that WHS itself does not warrant their full attention... it is the NAS market they are targeting for backup:
Moving forward, we are focusing on a strategy that allows us to
support a wide range of these devices in addition to Windows Home
Server. The separation of the backup service from the GUI in the 2.50
release will be one key step in allowing us to do this. Porting the
software to these other devices will also take some time, but we expect
it will be made easier by the fact that we already support Linux and
non-Intel (PPC) platforms. In the end, we plan to provide a unified
online backup solution for the entire home server and NAS market.
I am skeptical. It is arguably hard enough to create for WHS. I wonder how they plan to do stable software for all-manner of other software.
2. There is talk of whether WHS itself or an add-in will let you do backups and of what sort. I use BDBB add-in to do backups of backups, but A) have never verified that I could actually use this B) you are seeming more to ask about backups of shared folders. This is a mystery to me, so all I can do is reference a thread where you can see what I am saying:
http://forum.wegotserved.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3769Well I am only an enthusiastic amateur so please take care in trying
out my suggestions - always leave yourself an exit strategy!
In SP1 it is now possible to backup the WHS folders to an external (or internal drive) which is not part of the WHS pool.
Is this really true? I don't know if it would help speak to your question, but despite my lack of experience in the matter, I will try to keep my eye open on it.
